Murder on the Marshes_An absolutely gripping English murder mystery

by Clare Chase

  Tara would have to travel into Cambridge each day through all of that to quiz Samantha Seabrook’s contacts. If anyone wanted to get rid of her, running her off the road there would be a perfect way to achieve closure. She’d die under water, just as the professor had. She shuddered. She loved the stark beauty of the Fens, but she’d always felt their menace too.

  So not her mother’s house then.

  The other options were her father and stepmother’s place or Bea’s. Leaving aside what her stepmother would say about giving her house-space, there was no way she’d approach them. They had three children (yet more favoured half-siblings) still living at home. The youngest was only six. What if they got caught up in something because of her? No one deserved to run that risk.

  Which left Bea – her mother’s cousin. She’d been the one to step into the breach most often when Tara had been farmed out as a child. Tara felt just as protective towards her as she did towards any six-year-old. And besides, Bea ran an old-style Cambridge boarding house and the place was crammed to the gunwales at the moment. Tara couldn’t defend herself there without putting the other residents at risk. And then there was the worry she’d cause. No. There was no way she was even going to tell Bea about the doll, let alone descend on her.

  DS Wilkins appeared by her side. She’d scream if he brought up the subject all over again.

  ‘My apologies for the interruption,’ he said. He must have read her look. ‘I just wanted to let you know what’s going on. My colleagues are fitting cameras so that if anyone comes near we can get a good look at them. They’re also installing an alarm that’ll send an alert straight to the station if you have to trigger it. It’s silent, so any intruder won’t know we’re on our way.’

  She took a deep breath. That sounded practical at least. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I’m off now,’ the DS went on, ‘but our crime reduction officer will talk to you before the team leaves. As well as the alarm here she’ll give you a standard, personal one to carry with you when you’re out and about. It could come in handy if you need to make a racket.’

  It was probably just like the one she already had. She’d have to get hold of something more meaty.

  The DS smiled for a moment. Tara suspected it was meant to be encouraging. He looked the sort to enjoy his role as protector and it made her skin crawl. ‘And I’ve just had a message from DI Blake. He’d like to talk to you again later in the day. Will you be heading over to the Institute for Social Studies to speak to the staff?’

  She nodded. ‘I made an appointment earlier to interview the head, Professor da Souza, and then another colleague of Professor Seabrook’s in town after that. I gather they’re fitting me round the interviews the police want to conduct.’

  The DS nodded. ‘Would you call DI Blake on his mobile when you’ve finished? He’ll probably still be over there too.’ He gave her a card with the inspector’s contact details on it.

  ‘I’ll do that.’ She got up to see him out.

  After he’d left she entered DI Blake’s number into her mobile and then tried to block the rest of the team out of her mind. She needed to get on with researching Samantha Seabrook. It was no longer a distraction from her own problems but a potential way of solving them. Working intensely would get her through this. Hopefully.

  Her first list of Google hits took her to a mix of dry academic sites showing Samantha Seabrook’s impressive CV, as well as some more glossy media ones. She’d been on television once. The production company’s website still had the related press release with a large photo of her attached.

  She’d been beautiful, but not in a cool, model-like way. There was something red-blooded about her, from her shining chestnut hair to the mischievous light in her eyes. She looked as though she’d been trying not to laugh.

  Tara found a short clip from the TV programme on YouTube. The professor’s delivery had been charismatic, which made her hard-hitting message all the more stark. She’d estimated that childhood deprivation led to 1400 deaths each year in the UK. Then she’d gone on to list the many effects of being born into poverty, from making it more likely that a child would die in the first year of its life, to having a higher risk of death in adulthood across almost all conditions that had been studied. The camera zoomed in on her face as she pointed out that most people were totally unaware of how hard life was for some of their fellow citizens.

  Tara glanced at the comments under the video. The professor seemed to have attracted the standard ratio of positive to troll-like responses. Had the person who’d killed her viewed this clip? Were they one of the people who’d written a comment that referred to her anatomy, rather than what she’d wanted to achieve? The world was so full of creeps and dysfunctionals. How was anyone to know which might cross that final line and kill?

  It got her thinking about her own social media accounts. She called up Twitter. Four new followers that day, none of whom she recognised, either by their names or photos. And of course, those names and photos could be false.

  This wasn’t getting her anywhere. She went back to the tab of search results, where she found a reference to Samantha Seabrook’s doctorate. Her thesis had been on the effects of cash-rich, time-poor parents on their offspring. Tara could guess where that topic had sprung from. With a multimillionaire businessman for a dad and an actor mother it seemed likely Samantha had been inspired by her own experiences. Relatable.

  The professor’s Wikipedia page had already been updated to show when she’d died. Today’s date. The door had been shut on her life and she’d passed into history. What would people write about Tara if she or the police slipped up and her story ended too? She hadn’t done anything as worthwhile as Samantha Seabrook, but she hoped someone would remember she’d been a fighter.

  Tara glanced over the record of the professor’s academic achievements: a first in her degree from Oxford, then a PhD from Cambridge, followed by time spent lecturing at London School of Economics. After that she’d taken up her role at the university as a senior lecturer. Just two years later – a year ago now – she’d got her professorship. Further down the page there were details of her early life. Her mother had ‘died in an accident’ when Samantha was just fifteen. There were no further details. What kind of an explanation was that?

  Tara searched for the mother’s obituary on the web but drew a blank; 1997 was well before newspapers had established their online operations. At last she found an ‘On This Day’ feature in a Wisbech newspaper. A write-up of Samantha Seabrook’s mother’s life had been revived just a couple of months earlier to mark the twentieth anniversary of her death. Bella Seabrook (her acting name had been Bella Dempsey) had had various small parts in big-name films. The article made much of her local roots and – irritatingly – her marriage to the great Brian Seabrook. Tara wouldn’t have written the article like that. Again, Bella’s early demise was explained away in that one liner: ‘died in an accident’. Well, whatever had happened to her, Tara intended to find out; it couldn’t be that difficult. Her death must have sent a crack through Samantha’s childhood.

  Tara was just about to follow another link when a woman appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ she said, smiling. ‘I just need to run through a few things before we head off.’

  Tara stood up slowly and dragged her gaze from the computer screen. ‘Sure.’

  The woman showed her the silent alarm they’d installed on the upstairs landing that would summon the police to her house. It had a wireless activator she could take with her from room to room. ‘I really would advise you to use the chain on your front door too,’ she said.

  No kidding.

  ‘And, if you can run to it, a new back door wouldn’t be a bad idea.’ She glanced over her shoulder down the stairs. ‘I don’t want to alarm you but it is just a little on the flimsy side.’

  You could kick it in wearing flip-flops.

  ‘And, well, the fence round your garden isn’t all that robust, is it?’


  ‘I booked to have the back door replaced just after I saw DI Blake this morning.’

  ‘He suggested it too, did he?’ She smiled again. ‘Well done you for getting it sorted out so quickly.’

  Explaining that DI Blake hadn’t suggested it would have involved ungritting her teeth, so Tara didn’t bother. She’d been well aware of her house’s inadequacies for a while now. And funnily enough the events of the previous night had focused her mind.

  ‘For when you’re out and about,’ the woman went on, ‘a lot of what we advise is just common sense. I’ve got a personal alarm for you here.’

  Tara had been right. It was just like the one she’d already got.

  ‘But on top of that,’ the woman said, ‘make sure you keep to well-populated places. Don’t come home after dark and avoid situations where you could get cornered.’ She counted the points off on the fingers of one hand. ‘Check who’s at the door before you answer. All the kind of things you’d probably do anyway.’ Her tone was cosy, but then her eyes met Tara’s. ‘We’ll ask patrolling officers to keep an eye out when they can, and to treat any related call-outs as an emergency.’

  The officer started to descend the stairs and Tara followed. Down below she could see the other members of the team had gathered in the hallway. Just as she reached the ground floor the woman turned to look at her again. ‘One more thing I should have said. It might be an idea to put your hair up. It sounds so silly, I know, but it really can make a difference. Long hair like yours makes it that little bit harder to see who’s around you, doesn’t it? And for an attacker it is just one more thing to snatch at.’

  Tara thought of Samantha Seabrook’s photograph and her elbow-length glossy hair. ‘Did that happen in the professor’s case?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s just advice we give as a matter of course,’ the woman said.

  But that didn’t answer her question, and Tara noticed the woman didn’t meet her eye.

  The team left, but the feeling of their presence still hung about the house. There was a small pile of dust just inside the front door, where they’d been drilling to fix the security camera. It had been installed outside, but the walls were thin; the hole they’d made must have come right through. And the plastic packaging the wireless panic button had come in lay on top of the bookcase on her landing. Even the air still seemed to be swirling after their fevered activity.

  She went to make herself another mug of coffee and then made up her mind. She was going to tell Kemp what was going on. He’d been the one who’d taught her self-defence after the last time. He’d had lots of tips then; he was ex-police turned security – tough, practical and a renegade. It had been his training that had stopped her feeling like a sitting duck. Besides, with their past, holding out on him felt wrong. Especially if anything did happen. Other than him, she’d keep the whole thing secret. She didn’t want people worrying, or treating her differently because of the threat she was under.

  She sat down to drop her old mentor an email.

  Seven

  The visit to Addenbrooke’s mortuary was just about as much fun as Blake had anticipated. Sir Brian Seabrook was a big, powerful, bear of a man, but he looked as though someone had sucked all the air out of him. It was as if he was collapsing in on himself. Blake did his best but he knew he had no words that would give any comfort. He focused on the action they were taking; it was all he could think of.

  After the formal identification had taken place, Kirsty Crowther, the family liaison officer, shepherded Sir Brian back to her car and Blake and Emma paused to speak to Agneta.

  The pathologist hadn’t added much to the conclusions she’d detailed in the fellows’ garden that morning at St Bede’s. As she’d thought, the professor had had no drugs in her system and only a small amount of alcohol.

  ‘She had several tattoos,’ Agneta had said, passing over an envelope of photographs. ‘None of them look recent, so I don’t know if they are relevant.’

  He’d had a quick look before he’d begun the drive back into town. One of them – in the small of her back – read: ‘No Tomorrow’. Whatever its significance had been when she’d had it done it was painfully apt that day.

  Now Blake and Emma were up on the second floor of the Institute for Social Studies, standing in what had been Professor Seabrook’s office. The room was stuffy. It faced west, but much of the afternoon light was blocked by Gonville and Caius, the tall college opposite. Already the room had that strange air of having been permanently vacated. The professor’s belongings lay around as she’d last left them, frozen in time like the hands of a stopped clock. The CSI team had already been in to do their work. Photographs had been taken; the scene recorded. Through the window, Blake could see Caius’s upper storeys. The carved stone heads on its façade looked back at him, their eyes blank. Shame they couldn’t see and talk. Someone had made that arrangement to meet Samantha Seabrook at St Bede’s. Had they done it in person? The application had been made to access the professor’s mobile records via the phone company. The mobile itself still hadn’t been found.

  Jim Cooper was with them. Blake shared a look with his DS as the building supervisor bent his buzz-cut head over one of the desk drawers. The man had the build of a rugby player and made the furniture in the room look tiny.

  ‘The doll was just in there,’ he said. ‘Like I said it was. Only your people have got it now of course.’ The note that had been with it had also been bagged and removed.

  ‘And Professor Seabrook told you about it when?’ Blake asked.

  ‘About a week and a half ago, just like I said.’ There was an edge to his voice and Blake saw him shoot an accusatory glance at Emma. He probably imagined she hadn’t passed on his message, but Blake had just been hoping to catch him out. They already knew he, and most of his colleagues, had no alibi for the time of Professor Seabrook’s death. Still, he hadn’t really expected the man’s story to change. Either he was on the level or lying through his teeth with well-rehearsed words. Blake still wasn’t sure which, but there was something about the guy he didn’t quite like. For one thing, Cooper was sweating. It might just be the weather, but he didn’t think so.

  Blake leant back against a filing cabinet. ‘And where was the professor when she told you about the doll?’

  ‘Right here,’ Cooper said. ‘That’s how I knew where it was. She pulled open the drawer and showed me.’ He sighed. ‘She didn’t take it seriously. It wasn’t in her nature. She was more focused than any of them when it came to her work, but everything else?’ He shrugged. ‘She’d just laugh it off.’

  Blake found it hard to understand. It took a lot of bravado (and, he would normally have said, stupidity) to ignore a death threat altogether. ‘All the same, I understand from DS Marshall that you were worried,’ he said. ‘You suggested she should tell someone else. But as far as you’re aware you’re the only one she confided in?’

  Cooper stuck his hands in his jeans pockets, smiled and strutted over to the tall window. ‘Reckon it was just me,’ he said. For a moment he peered down onto Trinity Street below. ‘We hit it off.’ He turned to face them again and folded his arms, accentuating his biceps. ‘She used to talk to me about the academics sometimes. I don’t think she found them anything to write home about. Sometimes she’d say it was only we two who made things happen here.’

  ‘Sounds as though you were close,’ Blake said.

  Cooper nodded, jutting his chin out. ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘So if you were so concerned for her,’ he moved a step closer to the man, ‘why the hell didn’t you step in? Tell someone what you’d seen, and that you were worried? Surely it was your responsibility to bring it up with the institute’s head, or the administrator?’ For a man in charge of security he seemed to take his duties pretty lightly.

  Cooper’s eyes narrowed at his raised voice. ‘She was an independent woman,’ he said. ‘She knew what she was doing. No way would she have wanted any interference.’

  ‘But if y
ou cared about her?’ Emma said quietly.

  There was a long pause and Blake noticed Cooper had bunched his fists. ‘I cared enough to respect her right to privacy.’ The man glanced over Blake’s shoulder towards Samantha Seabrook’s office door. ‘The institute’s a small place. One careless word and everyone knows your business.’

  ‘You sound as though you’re speaking from experience,’ Blake said.

  Cooper rolled his eyes. ‘Me? I’m beyond taking any notice of what people say,’ he drew himself up, ‘but I have to look out for the staff I support.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘You must be crucial to the management of this place,’ Emma said.

  Blake kept his face neutral. He couldn’t have faced buttering Cooper up himself, but it was in a good cause.

  ‘People don’t always see it that way,’ the supervisor said, his shoulders starting to relax again, ‘but you’re right. And Samantha understood that. She never saw me as second class to the academics. And she and I, we kept similar hours. I get in around six in the morning as a rule, and it wasn’t uncommon to find her here too. And then I’ll normally be around until eight or so in the evening.’

  ‘And the professor stayed late as well?’ Blake said.

  There was a fond light in Cooper’s eye. ‘Not always. She had a life outside too, but she had plenty of drive. When she was working at something she’d go for it day and night. Rather different from some of her colleagues.’ He gave them a meaningful look. ‘You don’t see the institute head, Professor da Souza, in here before ten o’clock, even on a good day. As for Samantha, I don’t reckon she needed much sleep. She had a lot of waking hours, and she devoted them to work or play, whatever met her needs at any particular time.’